Abstract
The essay demonstrates how Carlo Goldoni confronts economic issues related to unproductive consumption and debt in his comedies, and particularly in the Trilogia della Villeggiatura, in La bottega del caffè and in La bancarotta. Goldoni describes a society in which excessive spending, particularly in crisis situations, is apparently necessary to accumulate symbolic and social capital; but this same situation continually puts the characters (and society as a whole) at risk of bankruptcy.